Una familia americana se muda a una casa en Kioto. Resulta estar embrujada por los fantasmas de una mujer y su amante, que fueron asesinados por el marido de la mujer, así como por el fantas... Leer todoUna familia americana se muda a una casa en Kioto. Resulta estar embrujada por los fantasmas de una mujer y su amante, que fueron asesinados por el marido de la mujer, así como por el fantasma del marido, que se suicidó después.Una familia americana se muda a una casa en Kioto. Resulta estar embrujada por los fantasmas de una mujer y su amante, que fueron asesinados por el marido de la mujer, así como por el fantasma del marido, que se suicidó después.
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Elenco
- Premios
- 4 nominaciones en total
- Shugoro
- (as Toshiyuki Sasaki)
- Assistant Mask Maker
- (as Shoji Ohara)
- Tadashi
- (as Jiro Shirai)
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Todo el elenco y el equipo
- Producción, taquilla y más en IMDbPro
Opiniones destacadas
The excellent opening scene, set in the middle of the 19th century, sees a samurai returning home to find his wife in the arms of another man. Sword in hand, the wronged warrior bursts into the house and slaughters the lovers, before committing hara-kiri (ritual suicide).
Cut to the present day: American magazine writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert), his wife Laura (Susan George, looking as lovely as always) and their daughter Amy (Amy Barrett) arrive in Japan, where friend Alex Curtis (Doug McClure) has arranged a house for them to live in while Ted writes an article. No prizes for guessing that it's the same house where the samurai went kill crazy with his katana, that the ghosts of all three dead people still haunt the building, or that history is about to repeat itself.
With superimposed spooks in bad make-up orchestrating Rentaghost-style supernatural occurrences, much of The House Where Evil Dwells is unmitigated cheeze, moderately entertaining for its sheer silliness. Director Kevin Connor gave us the excellent Amicus anthology From Beyond the Grave (1974) and that classic of the macabre, Motel Hell (1980), but let's not forget that he also gave us those campy craptastic fantasy flicks The Land That Time Forgot , At The Earth's Core, and Warlords of Atlantis (also starring the mighty Doug McClure). The House Where Evil Dwells is more camp than classic.
Household objects move by themselves, the ghosts possess the living to make them behave uncharacteristically, Laura sleeps with Alex (giving George another opportunity to shed her clothes), Amy is attacked by crabs, including two oversized clockwork crustaceans that can climb trees, and Ted witnesses an incident involving a samurai sword that would have had me saying 'Sayonara' and hopping on the next bullet train outta there.
Connor wraps thing up as expected, with Laura telling Ted about her infidelity, which leads to a wonderfully daft finale in which Albert and McClure do bad martial arts, before Ted lops off his old friend's noggin, stabs Laura with his sword, and kills himself.
The film is also part travelogue of Japan and it does this well too. The ghosts are fairly authentic to Japanese culture--including the face in the soup ghost that others have thought silly. What's interesting about the ghosts in this film, that is pretty unique, is that we the audience see the ghosts but for the most part the characters in the film don't. I can't think of another ghost story that has done this. The movie moves pretty quickly though in the middle it loses a bit of steam and it's also in the middle that the ghosts get a bit silly, but most of this can be forgiven with the uncompromising and memorable ending toping it all off. Also there is nudity and sexual elements and the female Japanese ghost is genuinely creepy as is the dialog free opening of the film.
Must be said that the existing DVD of the film has a soft looking 16 by 9 image, if you watch the full frame version the image is sharper and you see more image top and bottom, so the widescreen is just a slightly sloppy blow up of the same video master. The trailer to the film also 16 by 9 looks much better than the movie! But it's still worth watching.
Director Connor does one of his best jobs here, it's too bad that in the middle part of the film he has the ghosts run around in scooby Doo fashion, but it's a relatively short lapse in his effective film. George bugs her eyes out one too many times but otherwise gives a good performance as do the 2 male leads. The daughter character is fairly poorly written and acted but that's a smallish part of the film.
It's a unique ghost story it's got exploitation elements to keep you going as well. Hey at least it makes sense, which is more than you can say for THE GRUDGE. Those 2 films pretty much stand alone, well along with THE MANSTER for genre films made by Westerners in Japan.
The film begins with a prologue set in the 19th Century, with a samurai husband killing his wife and her lover before committing suicide. A move forward to the present introduces married couple Ted & Laura, visiting Japan and moving in to the house where the tragedy took place.
No surprises as to what happens next, with the spirits of the dead starting to take over the new inhabitants with family friend Alex (McClure) assuming the role of the wife's lover.
Everything rumbles clumsily along with the elegance and grace of a charging elephant, to an inevitable ( but surprisingly downbeat ) conclusion. Main points of interest are two feeble decapitations ( 'The Omen' has a lot to answer for in promoting this as a standard horror set-piece ), and the love-making scenes featuring the doe-eyed but extremely kinky Susan George. The first is a long 'Don't Look Now' inspired piece with her hubby, complete with piano music; the second a much shorter (probably at her insistence) entanglement with McClure, both looking pretty uncomfortable. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and both scenes show of her fantastic knockers so all is not lost.
Overall I can't decide whether 'The House where Evil Dwells' is rubbish, watchable rubbish, or entertaining in a masochistic kind of way. If you're not into the genre there is nothing here at all, but for horror fans there is probably enough to provoke the odd rye smile and appreciative nod of respect for effort.
BEST SCENE - in any other film the big, black, tree-climbing, Japanese-muttering mechanical crabs would have stolen the show. They are eclipsed though by the legendary family meal scene, where a ghostly head appears in the daughters soup. On seeing this apparition she asks what kind of soup it is (!!!!), to be told beef and vegetable, before uttering the immortal line "Ugh - there's an awful face in my soup". If this wasn't enough the reply is "C'mon, eat your soup for Daddy." Laurel & Hardy rest in piece.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaThe visual effects sequences featuring the Japanese ghosts were filmed utilizing an old German camera technique known as "Shauftausen". In a 2011 interview with John Kenneth Muir, director Kevin Connor said of this: "...basically you shoot the scene with one camera through a right-angled mirror. The ghost actors are on a black velvet background so you can control the density of their image as you shoot, ie you fade them in and fade them out and line them up easily with the 'live' actors. It worked very well, and of course you could see the composite dailies next day. Eventually we got this technique down to a fine art. It was important to show the ghosts in this fashion because basically it was an economical and effective process".
- Citas
Amy Fletcher: [as she is watching a blue, ghostly face making faces at her] There's an awful face in my soup!
- Versiones alternativasThe 1986 UK Warner video version was cut by 34 secs by the BBFC to edit the decapitation scenes and shots of a severed arm.
- ConexionesFeatured in The Cinema Snob: Visiting Hours (2023)
Selecciones populares
- How long is The House Where Evil Dwells?Con tecnología de Alexa
Detalles
Taquilla
- Total en EE. UU. y Canadá
- USD 667,863
- Total a nivel mundial
- USD 667,863